Category Archives: Website

Every now and then I go looking for help online. I want help with decluttering, organizing, saving money, recipes, home decorating, gardening, food preservation, and other topics.

This morning it was saving money and decluttering. I found an article which had enough new information in it that it generated and “action item.” That is, I have to share the article with my husband and discuss if any of these apps make sense for us. That said? You may be interested too, so here’s the article:

If you’re interested in my money-saving philosophy, you can find that here.

I took the 2nd Hoosier to the auction house yesterday. This won’t save us $, but will get a little bit back. I’m not expecting much, < $100, but still it’s money we didn’t have, whittles away at the “too much furniture” situation, etc.

The other topic I wanted info. about was decluttering. I keep thinking someone else will have a better idea. But alas, I haven’t really found anything new. The process of decluttering is the same: deciding if you’ll use something, if so, keep it. If not, get rid of it: trash, swap shop, donate otherwise, flea market, etc. The only new thing I found this morning was someone who did this in a more organized fashion than I do: with 4 containers (store, trash, donate, or put away), a tablet/pen to make notes for future organization issues, reminders, etc.

It isn’t the process that makes me want help. I have no problems with that! It’s the sheer amount of doing it that needs to happen.

Eventually, I want to host a “stuff swap.” This is where you invite people to bring 2 boxes per couple (1 box per person) of things you’d be willing to give away, invite friends on a certain day/time for a meal, lunch most likely, and to bring their boxes too.

Put the owner’s name on one short side of the boxes, and mix ’em up. Then anything in the boxes is fair game for anyone. Assuming your friends are polite and honest, people swap stuff without problems. The only kick is that you have to 1) return an unwanted item to its original box and 2) take home items in your box which weren’t taken.

It looks like our roof will *finally* be completed Friday. Hurrah! Now if we can just get the chimney folks to actually call us back, we may not freeze this winter! We have an appt. for getting the chimney fixed — hurrah #2!

…eleven years ago today, a website, 43things.com, which no longer exists, alas. I was looking for 43folders.com and misremembered the name. Best mistake I’ve ever made!

43t, as it is affectionately known, was a wonderful site full of (mostly) supportive people, many of whom are still friends of mine. The problems came about because it was an Amazon site and they had to make $. Instead of using what they had, namely a community of people who probably would have paid for a portal to be there, they did other things: supercheers, then links to FB and twitter available to anyone, for your posts or any other. It didn’t work.

Many of us wound up at popclogs.com after 43t closed. My account is inactive right now. Can’t remember my password and there’s some problem why they can’t give it to me.

My dad and my mom and one of my best friends all died very near my “real” birthday, so I use today as my birthday instead — because I discovered my first real “family” eleven years ago, today.

Just a reminder to me and others — mistakes aren’t always mistakes in the long run and families can be made if need be!

I just updated the “chore status 8/1” post. It seems the more I get done, the more there is to do — discouraging!!!

The memoir, of the same name as this blog now has a domain name of its own (there’s nothing there right now). To purchase the book, you’ll need to go to http://www.teacupofwater.com . I’ll post a notice here when the book is available and when the domain is actually live.

In the meantime, if you’re someone who said they wanted to be a beta reader, please contact me. A comment here will be fine. I won’t publish these, but will keep the data private. I need your contact info (email will work to start) and then whether you want an e formatted copy or a dead tree copy. Sorry, no dead tree copies out of the US, too expensive to mail!

If you know me IRL, drop me a note on FB or email and we’ll get you on the appropriate list!

Just so you know, my “target date” for releasing the beta copies is JUNE, 2016 . It may not be a very long book, but there’s still a lot of work involved in getting it ready!

For those of you who know, the memoir has been “finished” for some time. I had a job that I concentrated on, it was part time going to be full time, I thought, but it didn’t work out.

Anyway, I’m not doing that job now. So, I have the time to work on the other projects: the house, the memoir, the kitchen book, the cleaning plan, the vegetable garden — all of those have had a chunk of my time in the past few weeks. Along that line, I also have some website ideas which are in process too.

None of this is really brand new, it’s just been on hold for a while.

Here’s a rundown.

Memoir: needs the 2nd half rewritten. To that end I’m scheduled to go to a writing workshop in June.

House: the living room redesign, cull & clean continues. It’s getting there! The latest new piece is going to involve a major cull/clean in the bedroom too. That’s upcoming, probably this week.

Kitchen Book: I have ideas about publishing this, or part of it on my own. If I do that, I’ll provide a link here either to my shopping cheat sheets, or a write up or a link to a website, or ? The data is done. I need to hire some very talented ladies I know to do the graphics associated with it and possibly website design. It depends.

Cleaning Plan: Right now the plan is to write up an article or two, first. Then publish the plan itself. This is waiting on the house getting finished. Until it gets finished, I have a bunch of ideas that haven’t worked to talk about. I need a successful completion before I’ve got something salable!

Other Website Ideas: I’ve had 2 or 3 of these for some time. I need to buy the domains, and get the HTML done on them. I may get someone else to do them, DH may do them, or who knows?

Vegetable Garden: Some of this is related to the shopping cheat sheets. I realized I’ve got all this data, formatted, and why aren’t I using it myself? Growing food is part of this, only a small part, but it IS part of it!